Paul Giamatti voicing Asterix in the English-language version of Asterix and the Vikings. Brad Garrett as Obelix works quite well, but every time I see Asterix open his mouth I now expect him to say “dubbayooENNNNNNNNbeesee!”

I’ve gotten a few emails from people asking me about Citizens United v. FEC, and what I think about it. So, in order: 1.) Corporations were already mostly free to engage in political speech anyway, thanks to Wisconsin v. RTL a few years ago, which said they had the right to engage in “issue” advertising. […]

All right, I hope this is not an abuse of my posting priviledges here, but I thought there might be a chance that someone here could help me. There’s bit in the Tank Girl movie with Lori Petty where Malcolm McDowell says, “Eight, eight, the burning eight. Between Sunday and Monday hangs a day so dark […]

Now, if you look at the Jester without knowing anything about him, you’d probably write him off as Yet Another Bad Idea From The Golden Age (Which Is Forgivable Because It Was The Dawn Of Comics And So On). Seriously, that’s possibly the silliest, most garish superhero costume of all time. Not only does it […]

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys […]

Okay, sign me up.12 Look, I hate iTunes more than just about anything, but Apple understands design. People complaining that it is in the “uncanny valley” of gadgets – too big to be as portable as the iPhone, just big enough to be clumsy in your hands – don’t get it. This is the ultimate […]

As we all know thanks to Science, the octopus is one of the smartest animals under the sea – and when enraged, it becomes deadly! What do you do? What do you do? Thankfully, you can breathe underwater and therefore have no worries that you can defeat the beast, seeing as how you are Rex […]

The year is 1958. The month is June. The teenagers of small-town America are filled with a nebulous sense of rebellion against repressive sexuality and social convention. It was inevitable that some business genius would make money off their forbidden longings. A proto-beatnik named Forsythe P. Jones opens his own “escort service,” which involves not […]

I referred to the “battle around the world” sequence in Crisis On Infinite Earths last week and then a couple of people who hadn’t read it emailed me and asked me why it was so brilliant. Consider this the Cliffs Notes introduction, then. So, a bit of recap. Previously, the super-baddie Anti-Monitor tried to blow […]

This is the interesting thing about Sunburst: other than one appearance in a Global Guardians backup story in a Superboy comic, he was a total nonentity in the DCU Universe. I mean, total nonentity: he’d even been hypnotized – at his own request – to become unaware of his superpowers. Possibly this was because whoever […]

Prostitutes in New Orleans are being categorized as “sex offenders.” What the fucking fuck? I understand police wanting to cut down on prostitution; in a system where it’s not legal, it’s generally unsafe, and you want to disincentivize unsafe behaviour. (Of course, legalizing it would be simpler and safer all around, but God would get […]